intro text

This blog is intended to provide easy access to information about maintenance and construction activities that are occurring around campus. Blog posts will primarily be focused on notices, outages, and disruptions; however, we will also include notable information about activities of interest to the campus community.

We encourage you to check back frequently! Please bookmark, subscribe to our RSS feed, or follow us by email (box on the right).

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Parking Garage Construction and Extended Closure of Mallard Lane

On August 8th Neeser Construction will begin their second phase of mobilization for construction of the new 485-space parking garage. This project will have several significant impacts to the traffic flow around campus.

Mallard Lane will be closed for approximately 1 year. The existing alignment of Mallard Lane is not within the Municipality's road easement allocated for the roadway. This road will be realigned to the allocated easement creating a safer intersection at Mallard and UAA Dr. The current alignment of Mallard Lane also encroaches on the space needed for the garage.

The multi-use trail north of the Wells Fargo Sports Complex/Student Union will be closed at the bridge over Chester Creek. This closure will also last for approximately 1 year. Pedestrians traveling across campus must either utilize the spine or detour to the sidewalk along Providence Dr. (see map below).

The service lot behind the current Engineering building will be restricted access only (maintenance and coordinated deliveries).

Please be aware of construction personnel and heavy equipment in and around the site.

The new garage and the realigned Mallard Lane are expected to be open for use for the fall semester 2015.

2 comments:

This is extremely upsetting and I don't understand why a parking garage couldn't be built on an existing UAA parking lot. The construction is really disheartening (it was a beautiful road) and really inconvenient--there are many people, including myself, who use it to get to the north end of campus. A bit more notice would have been really appreciated, too--this seemed to come out of nowhere.

Thank you for sharing your concern. The site selection process for this garage went through an exhaustive review. One of the primary drivers for the placement of parking is tied to Municipal requirements on parking for new facilities - in this case the Engineering & Industry Building currently under construction off of Providence Drive. The parking spaces for new buildings cannot be divided by a major road and must be reasonably close to the facility. The Engineering & Industry Building was placed in a parking lot in central campus, so we also have to replace the parking lost there - again, reasonably close. This site was the best option to meet Municipal requirements and not further displace parking in the core of campus. The realignment of Mallard has been a plan the University has had for quite some time. The current road does not safely connect to UAA Drive.